History

Program Overview

The graduate program in History at Northeastern University challenges students to think critically about the past, inspires them to examine their perspectives on the present, and encourages them to intelligently shape the future.

The Doctoral Program in History, with a core focus on World History, trains research historians who plan to teach at the college and university levels. Emphasizing global approaches to historical study, the program encourages students to think beyond national boundaries, comparatively, and in terms of themes that span geographically dispersed areas of the world-trade, migration, disease, religion, state formation, colonialism, and post-colonialism. Studies also include long-term historical processes, major global transformations, and interactions between states and colonial societies. Candidates for the Ph.D. in History may examine African, Asian, European, Latin American, or US history in a world historical context. The program emphasizes mentoring of students in their courses, supervised teaching, and in the doctoral dissertation.

Systematic training in theory and methodology and preparation for college teaching are distinctive features of the Northeastern program. All doctoral students undertake intensive reading in the theoretical literature that informs historical analysis, as well as in global historiography. Each student develops a deliberate methodological focus in an area such as cultural history, social history, environmental and biological history, or public history. Students are mentored in the practice of teaching and are encouraged to lecture and lead discussion sections under the supervision of faculty.

The Master’s program in History stresses training in both the methods and literature of history, with major emphasis on students’ exposure to the broad array of historical methodologies that enable historians to analyze and understand the past.

Emphasizing global approaches to historical study, the program encourages students to think beyond national boundaries, comparatively, and in terms of themes that span geographically dispersed areas of the world, such as trade, migration, the global environment, state formation, or colonialism.

Master’s students may choose to complete their studies with a Master’s thesis or a comprehensive exam. Qualified MA candidates may be invited to apply to the Department’s doctoral program in World History.

Candidates for the MA degree must demonstrate reading competence in one foreign language.

Concentration In:

The Department of History at Northeastern University invites applications to its Master of Arts in history with a certificate in public history. One of the oldest programs of its kind in North America, Northeastern’s program in public history has produced more than one hundred graduates who have gone on to significant positions in historical societies, museums, archives, business, documentary film production, and other related organizations.